


Flower Power

by misura



Category: Dragon's Bait - Vivian Vande Velde
Genre: F/M, Feelings Realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-13 00:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16882422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: In which Selendrile may or may not have hay fever.





	Flower Power

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moonsheen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/gifts).



Selendrile sneezed.

Alys frowned. She had no idea whether dragons were capable of getting sick the way humans were, but she didn't much like the thought of Selendrile accidentally setting things on fire because he'd caught a cold. "Are you all right?"

"Of course I am all right." Selendrile's tone was confident enough.

Perhaps a little too confident, Alys thought. As if Selendrile was not only trying to convince Alys, but himself as well.

"You just sneezed," she pointed out.

"Humans sneeze all the time, don't they?" Selendrile said. "I've heard you do it at least a dozen times, and _I_ didn't make any sort of fuss, did I?"

Alys thought that she would have liked to see Selendrile make a fuss over anything or anyone, then decided that no, she probably wouldn't. Then again, Selendrile was hardly the fussing type.

"I'm not fussing," she said. "I only asked a question."

"And I answered it. Happy now?" Selendrile's tone suggested that Alys being happy was impossible, like asking for the moon. "Would you like to take a look inside my mouth to convince yourself I'm all right?"

Alys didn't think he was talking about his human mouth. "You don't need to get your back up like that. I - "

Selendrile sneezed again. This time, he shifted to his dragon form immediately after.

Alys rolled her eyes. As a dragon, Selendrile was capable of understanding her, but he couldn't talk back to her, which made conversation rather difficult.

"You're right. It was stupid of me to worry," she said.

Selendrile sniffed.

"I can't help it, though," Alys went on. "If you died, I would be all alone again."

Selendrile cocked his head. Alys didn't think that he would miss her after she died. Not for long, anyway. Dragons lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. To Selendrile, it probably felt like he and Alys had only met days ago, rather than months.

"Even I know humans don't die from sneezing," he said, having shifted back to human form. "You're being silly."

"And even _I_ know dragons don't sneeze," Alys countered. "So why do you?"

Selendrile grimaced. "The last knight brought flowers. A lot of them."

"Why - " Alys swallowed. On one level, she understood that the knights came here to kill Selendrile. Given that, it seemed unfair to blame Selendrile for killing them first.

On another level, she felt that killing people was wrong. Even if they were deeply unpleasant people who had tried to kill you.

Selendrile shrugged. "I didn't ask. Maybe he thought that they would make a nice gift for the princess I'm keeping prisoner."

Alys blinked. She thought that she had seen all parts of Selendrile's lair. "The princess?"

Selendrile sneezed, then scowled. "I suppose maybe someone spotted you and assumed that was what you were. I don't know. Humans are stupid. Who knows why they do anything?"

Alys suddenly felt guilty. People dying because they wanted to kill a dangerous dragon was one thing; Selendrile _was_ a dragon, and Alys knew perfectly well that he was dangerous. But people dying because they wanted to rescue her while she was here of her own free will and not the least interested in being rescued? She didn't like that idea at all. "You really think that he came here for me?"

"I said 'maybe', didn't I?" Selendrile sounded annoyed. "More likely, he was just after my hoard. Like all of them. After all, what good is a princess to anyone? At best, you get a lot of snobby in-laws, all thinking that you're an opportunist and an upstart. At worst, you get thrown into a dungeon for inappropriate behavior on the way back to her father's castle."

Alys blinked. The ballads and stories never said anything about in-laws or dungeons. True, the ballads and stories also never said anything about perfectly ordinary girls living with dragons and being perfectly happy to do so, but. "How do you know about things like that?"

Selendrile cocked his head. "Sometimes a knight comes when I'm not hungry."

_And do any of them leave again before you_ get _hungry?_ Alys decided not to ask. All things considered, Selendrile killing and eating people who came to murder him was probably better than Selendrile flying off to kill and eat people who had never done anyone any harm at all but were just unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Selendrile yawned. "Did you have any more questions?"

"What happened to the flowers?" Alys wondered what kind they had been. She didn't know much herb lore, but - _maybe that knight didn't bring flowers for any princess he thought was here. Maybe he brought them in the hopes of killing the dragon by poisoning it, instead of in a fair fight._

Of course, it was arguable how fair any fight between a human and a dragon could be. Sure, the knight might have a horse and wear armor and have a sword and a crossbow and maybe a lance. The dragon was much bigger, though, and it had claws and wings and breathed fire. You'd have to be very brave or very foolish to volunteer to fight a dragon all by yourself.

"I ate them," Selendrile said, his tone suggesting that this should have been obvious. "They didn't taste very good." He sneezed again. "Now, excuse me. I think I'm going to take a nap."

He didn't even wait for Alys's reply before he shifted into a dragon and curled up.

 

_Stupid dragon._ Alys had managed to resist the temptation to kick Selendrile back awake again. Barely. It helped that she was worried, even though in its own way, that was as annoying as Selendrile appearing to think nothing of eating flowers that might well have been poisonous.

_Stupid Selendrile._ Alys wondered what she was going to do if Selendrile died. She probably wouldn't be able to stay here. She'd have to take some of the money and leave, try and make a new life for herself. Again. Without Selendrile.

Of course, it wasn't as if she would miss Selendrile all that much. Selendrile was very annoying. He liked to be mysterious and high-handed and he enjoyed making her uncomfortable. Plus, he regularly killed and ate people. If Alys had come to think of him as a friend, that only proved that all those times he'd called her a stupid human, either out loud or by his tone, Selendrile had been right.

_What am I going to do?_ The knight could have told her what sort of flowers he had brought with him, and whether or not Alys was right in her suspicions. He was dead, though. _Eaten. Like the flowers._

And even if Alys did find out the name of the flowers, what then? She could hardly walk into an apothecary and ask for an antidote. _'Excuse me, but my friend who is a dragon has been poisoned. Could you help me save him so that he can go back to burning down farms and ravaging the countryside, please?'_

Alys swallowed. _My friend._ She wondered when that had happened, when she had stopped telling herself that any moment now, Selendrile was going to show his true colors and prove that as a dragon, he could never care for a mere human. _He saved my life. Several times._

_I'm not going to sit by and watch him die. Not if I can help it._ There were several books in Selendrile's hoard, some of them with pictures of flowers. It wasn't much, but it would be a start.

 

"Poisoned?" Selendrile sounded astonished, as if he had never heard anything so bizarre.

"I think it makes perfect sense," Alys said. "I mean, if I was going to kill a dragon - "

"You'd use poison." Selendrile sounded amused. "Well, I'll grant you it's safer than using a sword. It's not going to work any better, though. Dragons aren't humans."

"What does that mean?" Not that dragons were immune to poison, Alys didn't think. If that was the case, Selendrile would have said so. Plus, she already knew that iron was deadly to dragons.

Selendrile sneezed.

"You can't tell me that you're perfectly all right," Alys said. "Not when you keep doing that."

"It's just a few sneezes." Selendrile's tone was airy, haughty. "I can stop any time I want."

Alys decided that a statement as ridiculous as that didn't even require a response. "Why are you being such a stubborn idiot about this? Can't you see I'm only trying to help you?"

"But I don't need any help, yours or anyone else's," Selendrile said. "I certainly didn't ask for any."

Alys threw up her hands. "Fine. Die. See if I care."

"Oh." Selendrile blinked, then sneezed, then smiled. Alys thought it was a very triumphant smile. "You're worried. Very, deeply worried. About me."

"No, I'm not," Alys insisted, though she was sure that he could tell that she was lying. After all, _she_ could tell that she was lying, so Selendrile almost certainly could, too.

Selendrile smiled again. "Of course not," he said.

Alys suddenly noticed how close the two of them were standing to one another. All Selendrile had to do was reach out a hand, and he would be able to grab her arm.

_And why would he want to do that?_ Alys asked herself. _Or is it that_ you _want him to do that?_ There was nothing friendly or romantic about grabbing someone's arm.

Not, naturally, that Alys would even _want_ Selendrile to do anything friendly or romantic. Though she supposed that she also didn't want Selendrile to do anything _un_ friendly.

"You look like your head hurts from thinking too much," Selendrile said. "What about, I wonder." His expression suggested that he knew perfectly well.

Alys wondered how much her own expression gave away about what she was feeling. "None of your business," she said. She wondered what would happen if Selendrile _did_ grab her. From what she'd seen the boys do in Saint Toby's, next, he would try to kiss her.

The whole kissing thing had looked and sounded very uncomfortable and not at all enjoyable to Alys. She hadn't been able to understand why anyone would want to do something like that.

She thought that perhaps if Selendrile did it, she might find out.

"If you say so." Selendrile took one step back.

Alys took one step forwards. She hadn't consciously decided to; it was as if her body had taken the decision for her. Selendrile did or said nothing, as if what would happened next was entirely up to Alys and Alys alone. As if it didn't matter at all to him what she decided to do.

_You should step back,_ Alys told herself. _He's a dragon. He keeps telling you._ She didn't step back. Instead, she reached out her hand and put it on Selendrile's arm.

She was only human. She didn't have the strength to grab him and pull him against her. Not unless he chose not to resist her at all, to let her do it.

"I thought you didn't like being so close to me," Selendrile said. Alys felt his breath on her face. She sensed the warmth of his body even through their clothes.

She found herself wishing that he would do something - anything. To give her a sign that she wasn't making a fool of herself.

Selendrile sighed and put his arms around her, bringing their bodies even closer together than before.

"I don't," Alys said, a little too late, she thought, to make her denial very believable.

"Ah." Selendrile smiled. "My mistake. You're only doing this because you're worried about me."

Alys considered. "Not that worried," she said. "Not anymore."

"Then, should I let you go?" Selendrile asked.

_Never,_ Alys thought, and kissed him. _Never, never, never._


End file.
